Perthro
by kjm126316
Summary: Hiccup is... Not fond of the rune Perthro, for obvious reasons. He already knows he's an outcast among his people, why should he have a rune to remind him of that? (AKA Hiccup is Unhappy to be likened to the empty cup Perthro, and Toothless tells his human, in no uncertain terms, that the rune stands for more than an empty drinking vessel.) I do not own How To Train Your Dragon.


**Hiccup ran through the village, nearly ploughing over several people in his haste.**

"Sorry!" He called, but didn't stop. If anything, the brunet only increased his speed.

Why the rush, you ask?

Because Hiccup had been halfway to the grotto before he realized he'd left several designs for Toothless' tailfin out- where _anybody_ could find them.

"God, how could I have been such an idiot?" He muttered to himself as he rounded the corner. "Stupid Hiccup, stupid Hiccup!"

Now in the forge, the brunet looked around wildly for a moment, then breathed a sigh of relief when he realized no one was there.

His secret was safe- _Toothless_ was safe. For now.

Jogging briskly into the forge to grab his drawings (no way in hell was he leaving them by themselves, the brunet decided to take them with him) Hiccup didn't notice his cousin come up behind him until he was poked, rather painfully he might add, in the ribs.

"Gah! Snotlout!" he whirled around, green eyes wide. The papers were hidden behind his back. "What do you want?"

The older viking grinned and leaned against the wooden post, quickly getting off it as it creaked and groaned under the extra weight; "Nothing much," he said, still smirking. "You left this at the arena."

Snoutloud held out his hand, a stone pendant on a leathery cord clutched tightly in his grasp. Upon seeing and examining it, Hiccup scowled darkly.

"Oh, thank you Snotlout," he said, sarcasm dipping from his tone as he snatched the necklace from his cousin. "I was wondering where this had gone." The elder snorted a laugh.

"Well, I knew Gothi would be hurt if you abandoned her gift, so I thought I'd give you your _useless_ rune back," he sniggered, laughing as Hiccup stowed the stone away in his vest and stormed out of the forge.

Hiccup cursed out his cousin in every dialect he knew as he rushed through the village, now in a proper bad mood. The people skirted around him, as if sensing his ire- a properly angrered Hiccup is not something anyone wants to deal with.

After entering the forest, the viking sighed and finally slowed his pace, staring moreosedly at the rune he didn't remember pulling from his pocket for a few seconds, thoughts a whirling mess.

Then anger kicked back in, and with a huff Hiccup stashed it away again.

Gothi had made them for 'the children,' as she'd put it. (Basically everyone 15 and under.) Being a rune caster*, she was of the firm belief that everyone had a rune associated with them, and had for some reason seen fit to carve them into stones and hand them out.

It was a kind gesture, really, but honestly, Hiccup wished she hadn't- it just reminded him of how _different_ he was from everybody.

Snotlout had, unsurprisingly, Teiwaz, the rune for victory and warriors. Hiccup hadn't expected any less, honestly.

Fishlegs and Astrid both had Kaunaz, though Hiccup suspected for different reasons. Astrid for her fiery demeanour, and Fishlegs for his knowledge, most likely.

The twins had both gotten Ehwaz, and, as usual, completely ignored it's relation to twins in favour of "why the hell am I a horse?"

And Hiccup… Hiccup had gotten Perthro.

Honestly, it hadn't bothered him that much at first. Hiccup was admittedly not as well-read with Elder Füthark as he should be, especially for the Chief's son, so he hadn't known the meaning of Perthro in great detail.

But Snotlout… Snotlout had.

Hiccup could still hear Snotlout's laughter when he'd seen Hiccup's rune.

"Perthro?" He'd gasped between fits of giggles. "Oh, that's rich."

Hiccup stared at him in confusion for a moment, not wanting to appear inferior, but natural curiosity won out; "And this amuses you because...?" Snotlout rolled his eyes.

"Perthro is the empty cup, dumbass," he explained, elbowing Hiccup roughly in the ribs. "As in, _empty inside._ Or, in your case, empty of all the necessary traits to be a proper viking. A husk, if you will. Totally useless."

Hiccup had frozen for a second, a dark scowl forming on his features as he stared at the Perthro he held in the palm of his hand.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut sniggered quietly in the corner; "Useless got the Useless rune!" Hiccup rolled his eyes.

"Thank you, for that stunning vote of confidence," he drawled, runestone clutched so tightly his knuckles went white. "Really does wonders for my self-esteem."

The twins and Snotlout were still giggling madly to themselves, but Fishlegs and Astrid seemed at least semi-apologetic. Which… that was nice.

Well, it was nice, until Astrid commented; "It does fit you though. Being the empty cup, that is."

Aaaaaand crushing despair, there you are!

"Yeah, yep. Totally me," Hiccup deadpanned, fed up with the situation already. "Empty cup. Yay."

"Lighten up Hiccup!" Fishlegs said, evidently trying to make the smaller feel better. "Being the empty cup means… people will expect less of you?" He winced as the words left his mouth; that was not how he meant it to sound!

But it was too late to remedy the situation, Hiccup was gone, Perthro stone resting abandoned on the bench.

Grumbling darkly to himself, Hiccup fished the offending rune out of his pocket and glared at it for a few seconds, before his expression softened into resignation.

"Perthro, eh?" He muttered to himself. "Why am I not surprised?"

Hiccup's mood fouled further as he entered the grotto; Toothless was sound asleep. Which… wasn't a problem in and of itself, but Hiccup could _really_ use a flight right about now to take his mind off… everything.

"I mean really, what did I expect?" The brunet asked himself as he plopped down on the grass, still studying Perthro. "Uruz, for power? Thurisaz, for Thor?" He snorted at the mere idea. Him, Hiccup the Useless, possessing Thurisaz! The idea was as ludicrous as it was stupid.

Ire growing by the minute, Hiccup threw Perthro off to the side. It didn't get very far, but it was out of his sight, and that was all that mattered.

Meanwhile, across the clearing, Toothless cracked open one luminescent green eye, Hiccup's mutterings having woken up. He looked over the clearing quickly, noticing Hiccup (the boy hadn't brought any fish this time, pity) and… a runestone?

Already more intrigued than he had been mere moments ago, the Night Fury untangled himself from his bat-like sleeping position and meandered over to the stone, pawing at it.

"Hey Toothless," Hiccup greeted the dragon, tone flat, and Toothless instantly knew the boy was in one of his Moods. Why, he wasn't too sure, but he had a feeling it had something to do with the Perthro he'd just unearthed.

The dragon rolled his eyes. Silly humans. They'd only just tapped the surface potential of runestones, and yet here they had people claiming to be experts.

Fools.

"Whatcha got there bud?" Hiccup asked, coming up behind the dragon. His face soured when he saw the runestone, confirming Toothless' earlier thoughts.

"Oh. That," his voice was not at all happy. "You can just leave that there, Toothless. It's… it's not important."

 _Like hell it isn't!_ If the dragon possessed the power of human speech, this is what he wouldn't said. But alas, he didn't, so instead he simply picked up the necklace (no easy feat, mind you) and placed it in his human's hand.

He was quite surprised when Hiccup immediately tossed it away again.

The Night Fury raised his eyebrows. This… this was unusual behavior. Was Hiccup feeling alright?

When the boy tossed it away a third time, Toothless gently nudged him. _Are you ok?_ The message was unspoken, but the dragon knew Hiccup understood- the brunet had a knack for Dragonspeak.

"I'm fine," the small human muttered. "I'm just... I'm not an empty cup."

 _Ah_. So that's what it was. Some of those… oh, what was the word again… self-esteem issues? Yes, that was it. Self-esteem.

(Toothless honestly didn't see what the boy was worrying about- _he_ liked him well enough, wasn't his opinion enough?)

Clearly the boy wasn't versed in the laws and rules of runes, Toothless thought a bit irritably. If so he certainly wouldn't be so upset with Perthro.

Toothless nudged the boy again, trying to convey feeling.

 _Perthro has other uses!_ He wanted to say. _It stands for luck, hearth, primal law! Good things!_

But alas, Hiccup misunderstood his nudging as impatience to go flying. Gosh darn this language barrier! The dragon fumed as Hiccup went to go check over his harness. What else could he do to work Hiccup out of this funk if he couldn't even communicate with him?

And, just like magic (which it may have been, you never could tell with runestones) it occured to the dragon what to do, and in and instant he was bounding across the field in search of a tree.

(They just kept disappearing. Toothless didn't know where they went, honest.)

"Toothless?" Hiccup was confused. One minute they were about to go flying, the next Toothless wanted to draw again?

Hiccup sighed, but smiled softly despite himself. The Night Fury could be unbearably fickle sometimes, he'd just have to accept that.

Though… this didn't look like one of Toothless' normal drawings, if he was being honest. No, rather it looked like… _writing._

Hiccup's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. Since when could Toothless write? Granted, it was… messy, to be put bluntly, but still legible if you squinted a bit.

"Toothless, how can you…" His words trailed off when he realized what Toothless had written.

Perthro.

The elation faded immediately, replaced by fed-upness as he gave the dragon a look of the very same nature; "Yeah, Toothless, I get it. Perthro. Empty cup. Yay."

He made to walk away, but the dragon stopped him. Quite irritated now, Hiccup looked up at him with fire in his eyes; "What?"

The dragon gestured at the poorly written rune, then at himself, multiple times. (It didn't look easy, Hiccup noted. It was quite impressive Toothless didn't fall over, now that he thought about it.)

On the third gesture, it clicked for the young viking, and his eyes went wide; "You… you're Perthro too?"

The dragon nodded, looking quite pleased with himself for having gotten this fact across.

 _An empty cup doesn't mean bad,_ was what Hiccup was picking up based on the look Toothless was giving him. _It means you can fill it with other things. Other talents._

Hiccup stared up at the Dragon in wonderment. Toothless smirked.

 _And they told me I was bad with emotions. Ha!_

Now that his work was done, Toothless started poking his human again in earnest, eager to go flying. Hiccup laughed softly and pushed the overgrown reptile off him.

"Alright, alright," he said, and _finally_ he was smiling. "Just gimme a minute."

They had a wonderful flight that afternoon. Truly enjoyable.

(But what pleased Toothless most was the fact that after that afternoon, it wasn't uncommon for Hiccup to be seen with his Perthro runestone on display.)

 ***You can't tell me Gothi didn't cast runes. No. I refuse to believe otherwise.**

 **Ok, full disclosure: I am by no means a rune master, I'm just someone who thought it would be fun to learn. I did in fact get most of this information from many different runestone websites and the Magnus Chase series, so apologies for any inaccuracies. Most rune casting is up to (semi-educated) interpretation anyways, so… yeah. (Also, I did find multiple spellings of different runes; don't freak out if they aren't spelled the way you know them, it's an old dialect- there are bound to be translation errors.)**

 **The twins' reaction to the 'horse rune,' Ehwaz, is based off my friends' reactions from school, by the by. (Like, honestly, guys, Ehwaz is E, it's literally the most common vowel in the English language. Do the math.)**

 **Au revoir, little biscuits!**


End file.
